They helped fleeing Romans evade Attila the Hun and held a glittering city aloft for more than 1,500 years. But the wooden pilings rising out of the Grand Canal in Venice are so decayed that as we clung to them one afternoon it wasn't at all clear whether they would be sturdy enough to prevent us from capsizing into its murky waters. It was rush hour in Venice, so the canal's usual tumult of crosscurrents and tides was churning with the wake of water taxis, ferries and delivery boats. Each volley of waves slapped against the side of the inflatable kayak we were using to cross Italy's most storied waterway; the pilings were our best chance to avoid being immersed in it. This probably wasn't quite what my friend, Audrey Lynn Gray, had in mind when we first started thinking about a trip to Venice. After scouring guidebooks, we found that the logical thing seemed to be to move about the city like other tourists: by foot, vaporetto (water bus) and the occasional overpriced gondola ride. But as novice canoers, we were intrigued by the thought of exploring the waterways ourselves. We spent hours researching where and how to rent a small craft in Venice but found that the combination of Italian bureaucracy and the mighty gondolier lobby has made it virtually impossible. Our solution? An inflatable kayak that's portable enough to check as luggage yet sturdy enough to hold 500 pounds and withstand the rigors of Class II rapids. Getting it there was easy because it weighs just 32 pounds and tucks into a suitcase-sized tote bag (along with a foot pump). The legalities of using your own boat in Venice are ambiguous. Part of the official Venetian tourist Web site states that only city residents may operate a boat in the canals, but the local rowers insist that restriction is enforced only regarding motorcraft. (We encountered more than a dozen police boats and attracted nothing more than a smile and a bemused shake of the head.) What is indisputable is that paddling the canals offers a visceral way to appreciate Venice's mythic waters. On a purely practical level, it's a lot easier to get lost walking Venice, with its twisting passageways and thousands of alleys, than to maneuver through its 200 easily navigable canals. The water also offers easier access to some of the city's overlooked neighborhoods. Of course, any attempt to explore Venice's canals involves a confrontation with the reality of water itself. Lord Byron and Casanova may have swum the canals in centuries past, but today swimming is banned for public health reasons. The canals are a drainage basin for 1.4 million people in the area around Venice, and a sewer system for the 60,000 residents of the historic center and the 20 million tourists who visit it each year. Dr. Edward S. Van Vleet, a University of South Florida Marine biochemist, has been studying the canals since 1985, and says the combination of chemical pollution and household waste make for a particularly noxious mix. “I wouldn't go in it on a bet,” he said. In fact, the most surprising sensory revelation of traveling the canals is the sound or, more precisely, the glorious absence of noise. Because Venice has no cars or traffic noise, today's city is true to its centuries-old nickname, La Serenissima, and that tranquillity is amplified on the water. A five-minute paddle from the tourist bedlam of the Rialto are aquatic side streets where even at midday, the hush was interrupted only by droplets from our paddles. It is in these back streets where a water-level view offers a sense of the canals as working roadways. Construction trawlers, water ambulances and small boats used as the family station wagon dodge nimbly around its narrow channels. Through windows that open onto the canal, you hear the echoes of children laughing at cartoons and the clang and sizzle from kitchens. While many gondoliers seem none too pleased at the prospect of sharing their waterways with nonpaying travelers, most boaters were polite. And many pedestrians appeared bemused by the novelty of a kayak, snapping photographs, waving and shouting the occasional “Buona idea!” Out on the bustling Grand Canal, however, the pace is too fast and the water too treacherous for such niceties. It took us three days of maneuvering the side canals to work up the courage to try to make it across the 60-yard width of the Grand Canal, a feat that at first glance appears as wise as crossing an Interstate on a tricycle. As we paddled from the Rio Di S. Zan Degola onto the Grand Canal, we hugged the shoreline, then sprinted into a cove of half-rotted pilings, buffering ourselves from the waves. Vaporetti powered past us from both directions, water taxis darted by, and delivery boats loaded with appliances, vegetables and bottled water chugged along. After two false starts, we spotted a crease in traffic and made a dash for it. Water splayed from our paddles as we sprinted out into the open water, swiveling our heads left and right to make sure we weren't about to be rammed by a turnip boat. After a minute of heavy paddling, we had reached the middle of the canal, where water was calmer and the city's sounds again seemed muted. Then we scurried across the other busy lanes. When we reached the bank, mercifully, there was a wine bar waiting to commemorate the achievement. (Parking on the canal is no problem: there are pilings, keels and hooks all along the sides, so at night — or whenever you want to explore the land — it's as easy as tying the boat and climbing ashore.) Having conquered the Grand Canal at its most harrowing, we couldn't possibly resist exploring it at its most enchanted, after dark. By 9 p.m., most of Venice's gondolas are moored at their docks and the delivery boats are gone. Slipping through the mist, with the gleaming marble palaces lighting both banks, we could hear the murmur of strolling tourists. On one side, rats scurried outside a garbage can. A few yards away, a couple was being photographed in midkiss. As we passed under the Rialto Bridge, the water reflecting so much light it looked electric, it was almost like gliding through a dream. - NYT __
